Coalition talks between Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats have begun. Will the German center hold, or will the talks end in collapse and an end of the Merkel era?

France’s Republican Party has chosen a new leader, Laurent Wauquiez, who did not hesitate to divide the party in order to conquer it. Now, having expelled his erstwhile comrades of the center-right, he has no alternative but to try to poach voters from the extremist Front National.